Send Print Share

Security and Conflict / Policy Brief

No time to wind-down in Bosnia

09/09/2009 By Sofia Sebastián

AFP/Getty Images

In May 2009, a crisis emerged in Bosnia when nationalist leader Milorad Dodik passed a resolution in the Republika Srpska parliament designed to undermine some of the key accomplishments of the state building process in place since the end of the war in 1995.

Although the crisis was eventually averted, it demonstrated again the highly volatile nature of Bosnian politics and the challenges faced by an international community that has grown impatient, frustrated and increasingly unsure how to resolve the Bosnian quagmire. The country continues to show no clear signs of reconciliation and there is a lack of commitment to the process of EU accession.

Most key reforms to date have either been directly imposed by the High Representative (HR), or have been accepted only after intensive pressure from the international community. Different political actors still hold mutually incompatible ideas about what the state should look like, and have not hesitated to raise the level of nationalist rhetoric in order to shore up support within their own ethnic groups. In June 2009 the EU expressed concern at ‘the unconstructive political atmosphere’.

Download the full version of this publication, available in English (238 kB)
Spanish (240 kB)

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovina Civil society Eastern Europe and Russia EU

Related publications

• Bosnia and Herzegovina's integration challenge
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: the international mission at a turning point
• Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Leaving Dayton behind: constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bio author: Sofia Sebastián

Sofia Sebastian graduated from a PhD in the Government Department at the London School of Economics (LSE) with a dissertation entitled ‘State Building in Deeply Divided Societies: Beyond Dayton in Bosnia.’